within that namely that, characterize it how they may, they seem to make atonement a transaction, historical, final, consummated long ago:-a transaction (I do not ask at this moment between whom; but at all events) far anterior to, and wholly outside of, the reality of ourselves. And so, partly in protest against every possible form of conception of what is felt to be so artificial, as a transaction, dramatically completed, and essentially outside ourselves: and partly in obedience to the correlative instinct that the only conceivably effective atonement must be somehow, where the seat of the necessity lies, within the personality that has sinned; human consciences rise in revolt against the entire doctrine of an accomplished atonement. It may be that neither of these two instinctive principles is based altogether on truth. Yet there is enough of popular truth in both of them, to make the protest which is based upon them a reality, needing to be taken into rational and serious account. And the positive meaning of the protest is itself truer than the statement of the principles on which it is based. It is true, even if the truth is too often urged without balance, that any atonement which is to be ultimately effectual for me, must find its ultimate reality within what I am. It is true that an atonement which is, to the absolute end, external only: which finds no echo, no place, as moral characterization, within the individual personality; can be to him, at last, no more than a possibility of atonement which now has failed, and is past.

It is through consciousness of the truth which is true on this side, that we in this generation have become familiar with two contrasted sets of theories of atonement,-set over against one another under titles whose theological history is (to say the least) singularly unfortunate, as respectively "objective" and "subjective" theories.

These words have been made to be badges of contradictory views. On the one side it is pleaded that if

the need lies in the sin which is, personally, the sinner's very own, nothing can touch the real point of the need, which is not, like the sin, within the sinner. And so, when the question is asked as to the real and permanent import of Calvary, the emphasis is apt to be laid upon the moral effect, the touching example, the eternal appeal which the picture of Calvary must for ever make upon the thoughts, and hearts, and lives of men. It is a marvellous incident-or marvellous suggestion-of history. Whether it be exactly incident, or suggestion, is not, it is sometimes insinuated, from this point of view, the question of most moment. For it is not as a transaction that it is either appealed to, or conceived. It is rather the idea than the fact: rather the inspiration which comes from it than its own achievement: rather the outflowing force of moral motive, than the external completeness of a consummated work, which constitutes both its reality and its power.

But if we adopt this language, and say that the truth of the atonement must be chiefly moral: and that its true reality is to be looked for subjectively within the conscience, rather than objectively on Calvary and the Mount of the Ascension; and if we would so correct, or explain away, the point of view of the historic Church; (a position to which, in all ages, one vein of mystical thought has tended to approximate ;) we are met, on the other hand, by arguments, trenchant and confounding, which would shew, both from human experience the imperative need, and from Scripture the most reiterated and solemn assertion, of a redemption wrought effectually, once for all, through the Blood of Jesus Christ. There are few modern writings on the atonement so widely read or so influential as that of Dr Dale. It will be remembered how the leading motive of his volume, and perhaps it may also be said his chief power, lie in this,—

in his accumulated proof that, without tearing the New Testament to pieces, you cannot separate from it its cardinal belief in the effective reality of a historical and objective atonement. It will be remembered also that the same faith, often in its most crudely objective form. itself constitutes the living religious force of a vast proportion of the conviction and practice that are, at least amongst Protestant communities, most vitally and effectively Christian.

But in truth the very antithesis itself is, on examination, artificial and unreal. For here, as elsewhere, the words subjective and objective are only relatively, not really, opposed. So far is either of them from really denying, that each in fact implies and presupposes the other; nor can either of the two, in complete isolation from the other, be itself ultimately real.

The word objective is used, by those who make a point of using it, to mark their insistence that the sacrifice of Christ was in itself real and adequate, "a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world;" and that it is so, whether I, or another, apprehend it as such or no. Of course it is so. What they so far contend for is altogether

necessary and true. It is not upon the power of

apprehension in one man, or in another, that the righteousness of God in Christ depends for being righteous, or for crushing sin. It was anyhow Divine righteousness, which, in and as man, broke down the power of sin.

But if it is to be-as in purpose and in capacity it assuredly is my righteousness, crushing sin for and in me; it is clear that it is not so, irrespectively of all that I can still either do, or be. It is of necessity that I should be in a certain relation with it: and upon my relation to it its relation to me will ultimately depend. In some form every one recognizes that this is true. In itself, and to

others whose life it has become, it is what it is, irrespectively of me. But to me, if I have no relation to it, it is as though it were not. An objective fact that is not apprehended in any sense subjectively, is to those who have no subjective relation to it, as if it were non-existent A fact objectively existing, in itself, without relation to any apprehending mind, is an impossibility to thought. Light may have indeed other qualities or effects; but it is not light save to a capacity of seeing. What is the light of noonday to a man born blind? To others, who know what sight is, it is real: but as far as he is concerned it does not, as light, exist. It is identical with its contradictory. To say that white, as white, is precisely identical with black, is to deny its existence as white altogether. The sunlight, apprehended by no creature, would yet be real to the apprehension and will of the Creative mind; but outside the apprehension of God or man, outside all relation to mind, it could have neither meaning nor reality at all. It is in its aspect as spiritually realized that it is, in fact, real. Thus those who plead for an objective atonement are right;-but would not be right, if its objective reality could be irrespective of realization subjectively.

What those, then, really demand on the other hand who plead for an atonement which would not be atonement after all, if its ultimate meaning were not a moral or subjective reality, is itself no less vitally necessary and true. But perhaps the word "subjective" is not used in this context so much as a term selected for defence by those who defend it: but rather as a term imputed for reproach by those who repudiate it. And as such the term is mixed up with associations which obscure and belie its meaning. Men use the word to stigmatise what is unreal as unreal. Men speak of the appearance of a nightmare or a ghost as subjective, meaning that it is

the mere creature of illusory imagination, which mistakes non-existence for reality. Now so long as the word is in familiar use to denote the hallucinations of a brain diseased, misconceiving untruth as truth: so long will it serve in theological discussion, whether upon the Atonement or the Eucharist, largely to caricature thought which it is incapable of representing truly. We need to get rid of the unworthy and false associations of the word. Subjective does not mean imaginary, or unauthorized. It does not suggest something unrelated to eternal truth; real only to the individual-in proportion as he, with no reason beyond himself, imagines it to be real. Subjective truth rather is that which is true in and to the apprehending capacity of the individual, because the individual has learnt aright to apprehend and see a truth, whose reality is not dependent on himself. What is real in and to my mind is therefore subjective to me. It is subjectively that the objective is realized. For its reality to me, for its reality to anyone, the objective waits for, and depends on, its correlative subjective. What is not subjectively real to any mind at all cannot be real objectively-just as light could not be light if no faculties of seeing existed: nor could matter be κóσμos save to mind. The two, then, are really inseparable, as convex and concave. Objective, that is wholly without subjective realization, is the same as non-existent. Subjective, that is not objective also, is hallucination.

So with the Cross and its atoning sacrifice. The subjective or moral theory that finds all its meaning within us men and our individual consciences, and makes but little of the act external, objective, historical, consummated adequately and once for all :-this, in trying to realize for itself the meaning of atonement, is really cutting off (as it were) the blossom which should become fruit, from the root